La passione delle rovine - Can you hear it? It is the old town that breathes beneath this one, that bends when its name is heard. Macerata. The heart keeps secrets that I do not understand and that return even when I do not invite them to me. When we came here for the first time, the sun was escaping to the shores of the Adriatic and let us in the arms of those who did not know us. This time it is different. Perhaps the entire return is different, maybe that is its nature. As Andrea explained to me, the name Macerata comes from the word "ruins" because this city was built on the ruins of another, an elder that is now a proud root of the smiles that recall her. It was this smile that came to receive us today. The smile of Eva, of Mauro, Giulia, Marco, Andrea, Cinzia, Fidelia and many others of whom I do not remember the name or did not get to know but of whom I already know the eyes. They told me that it’s been four years since they saw so many people here in this concert venue. The cars parked along the street lay on a huge queue to come and hear the wolf on the slopes of Sasso d'Italia. This mountain from which I can see my heart. Perhaps it was this: the sound of many steps which have awakened the old city ruins. Before playing the song Like The Wolf, I usually explain the concept of the album: the breaking of the illusion. This time, like never before and probably never again, in the precise moment that I said in my poor Italian “and then you realize that the wolf is just a dog", In the stage between us and the public came a dog who calmly walked up in front of my microphone to the center stage. Words failed me. I still have no words. How I wished not to wake up again if this was a dream. He looked at us and then returned quietly to the darkness from where he came, from the left, which is where the heart does not sleep. Shortly after the concert, when the roar of applause dissipated through the cracks of the stage, we found one of the faces who knew us from the first time we were here in February. She was also transformed by this time that separated us from Italy. Her skin even more, now adorned with the sun that illuminates the cover of Like The Wolf. The same sun, painted in black under the skin, near the blood. Forever. Another voice told me that she hadn’t climbed this mountain for so long because of the fears that inhabited these hills and that she came here today to address them. Like the Wolf. I told her what my mother told me: that through the rest of your life we will find wolves. Different ones. Always. And now that sleep is calling we hear the voice that sings from the ruins. Joao Rui